Matt O'Riley

100% the case. Ange didn’t want him unless he was deemed affordable permanently (now or at the end of a loan) and that just wasn’t possible.

Fair * to Michael Nicholson by the way, there’s no hanging about with the guy.

 

Oh really, oreilly?

Sign him up.

If we finalise it, another masterstroke of luck imo, lost out on a wee money grubber and ended up signing a hungrier and SUPERIOR player, who doesnt care about cash... For HALF the price.

Deal of the window

 

I have a good feeling about this one.

Same feeling I have with Hatate.

 

21 and English with a massive reputation as a youngster so even if it doesn’t work out we’ll make our money back at least.

If he’s even moderately successful 1.5m will be a bargain considering what we could get for him down there.

Looks like a younger version of Rogic

 

Aye, I can't for the life of me see how he won't make an impact here though..

Definitely bargains to be had down here though. No many, but these are exactly the one's where it's a real no lose for us..

Hopefully he does get the call from Denmark. One of the top ranked side's in the world and that will also be class for his development....showing why a move here is beneficial for player's down south over the championship say..

 

Thank * we never signed McGree by the way..

5 mill all in with add ons and 14 bag's a week haha..

Yet this boy for 1.5 who looks head and shoulders above him

 

Ange loves a signing out of nowhere

 

Compare Ange’s comments about McGree’s attitude, even the Charlotte owner or DOF has came out slating McGree as well, to O’Riley’s story of walking away from a big contract to train himself in a park…


Feels good to actually be professional again.

 

As football shut down in 2020, Matt O’Riley decided to jump into the unknown.
After 11 years on the books with Fulham, O’Riley turned down a new contract. It was a big decision for a 19-year-old with one senior league appearance to his name. He would go on to spend six months without a club at the height of the pandemic. He swapped Fulham’s training ground at Motspur Park for parks in Teddington, west London but it worked — O’Riley is now thriving with MK Dons in League One.
“I didn’t want to extend my contract for an extra month, and Scott Parker called me and said he didn’t think it was best for me to train until the end of the season,” O’Riley tells The Athletic. “I said that was fair enough.
“So for a good three or four months, I was training by myself and in the park with my dad. It was a lot of time on a Watt bike and then a run and a ball session in the park, until Russ (Russell Martin, now the Swansea City manager) said I could train with MK Dons to keep fit. I drove up there every day and back for six months.
“Looking back on it, it probably was (a difficult time). I didn’t really think about it. But when I reflect on what I actually did, to leave Fulham when I had the option of just signing a contract in front of me, it was a bold decision. But it’s one that I feel has worked out really well, both on the pitch and for me as a person. It showed that I’m doing this for football, rather than anything else like a contract or a cheque.”
O’Riley left Fulham seeking regular game time and that is exactly what he has found at MK Dons. He has played in every league game for the club since his signing in January, starting each game of the 2021-22 season, and statistically, he is among the leading performers in the third tier with two goals and two assists from a deep midfield role. At 20, he was handed the captain’s armband when Dean Lewington stepped up to become caretaker manager, following Martin’s departure for Swansea. It is a brave call that is paying off.
“I knew it was a risk,” he says. “The main thing people said to me was: how can you turn down so much money? I completely get it. I understand some people might think it’s wrong to turn down the amount of money I was offered. But that money wasn’t going to further my career. Coming here has boosted me as a player, as a person — I know money will come later on regardless. As long as I do well. As long as I play regularly. I back my ability and I know that I’ll go where I want to go.”
O’Riley was one of Fulham’s brightest young prospects and his departure did not go unnoticed. He joined the club at eight from Teddington-based team NPL, turning down Chelsea, and went on to become part of a really strong cohort of talent. He played in the same youth sides as Tyrese Francois and the Sessegnon brothers, and was a year above Fabio Carvalho and Harvey Elliott, now of Liverpool.
He first played for the under-18s at 15 and made his first-team debut at 16. “I spent most of my time with Steven, Ryan, Ty, those guys,” he says. “When I went into the 18s, I remember right from my first game, Ryan would always make a certain run and I’d find him with a certain pass. We had a good relationship, so it was a bit of a shame that I never really got to play with him properly in the first team. ”
Ryan Sessegnon burst onto the scene at 16 and O’Riley made his full debut against Wycombe Wanderers in the League Cup in 2016, under Slavisa Jokanovic. He continued to train with the seniors, picking up the odd cup appearance, but it would not be until 2020 that he would make his league debut. In the meantime, Fulham were promoted to the Premier League and then dropped straight back down. The changes in personnel those campaigns brought meant he felt there was not a clear pathway for him.
“It was a frustrating time,” he says. “I wasn’t that close to getting on the pitch at 16, but I was training every day. Then we went up to the Premier League and we signed the whole world. When you’re 17 and players arrive for £20-odd million in your position, you know that the incentive to play them is obviously higher. Players like Stefan Johansen and Kevin McDonald, who played every game to get promoted, even those guys barely got a look in. So when that’s happening, as a player who hasn’t featured at all, it’s going to be tough. But at the same time, I was only 17. So maybe I looked at it from the wrong point of view.
“But it happened again in the Championship, when Scott Parker was manager. I was involved. At the start of the season, I thought I had a good chance of playing a certain amount of games. But even then we signed a few midfielders in Harry Arter and Harrison Reed. Because Scott saw me in that deeper role, we had four or five different guys for only one position.
“When you are one out of four or five, and the other guys have played 100, 200 games in the league and I’ve played none, it’s going to be hard to play. Especially when he’s a new manager coming in, wanting to trust a player. It was frustrating. I thought I was training well and playing well. Sometimes the timing is just not right.”
O’Riley made the match-day squad in the league on nine consecutive occasions at the back end of 2019 before his first league involvement against Reading on New Year’s Day. Parker, he says, saw him as more of a “classic No 6”, and that added competition. “I respected that,” says O’Riley. “But I also thought I had more to my game to offer. When you play deeper, you don’t have as much licence to go forward. I feel like it was restricting my strengths. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t really how I wanted to play.”
He says he had a good relationship with Parker: “He always spoke highly of me, whether to my face or to other people,” he says. “He was always good but it was frustrating because that was my third or third or fourth year around the first team. I didn’t really want that to continue. I just wanted to play.”
It was then that he took the plunge. Initially, he would travel up from the family home in Thames Ditton to Milton Keynes every day to train with Martin’s side. “From day one, they were always really nice to me in a different sense,” he says. “Just a lot of praise, which I wasn’t actually that used to. It was nice to feel wanted.”
O’Riley went on trial with Belgian Pro League side KV Kortrijk in December, but a potential move broke down. It was then that Martin made things happen and compensation was agreed with Fulham. “Russell spoke to me and said ‘I really want you’,” says O’Riley. “I’ve never really had a relationship with a manager who would be talking to me regularly about how they feel about me, telling me what I can and can’t do. That sold me with Russ and the style of play was great.”

Under Martin at MK Dons last season, he played slightly higher up the pitch, but under new coach Liam Manning, he is sat deeper alongside Ethan Robson. “I’ve just got the licence to be creative,” he says. “And defensively, I’ve improved a lot. So just the balance of those two things has just helped me really push on this season.”
He also feels he is putting to bed some cliches. “The most annoying was ‘Matt O’Riley is not physical enough’,” he says. “I’m not sure if that was based on how I looked or not. Now that I’ve played a lot, people realise I’m capable physically, I can play regularly. I’ve just never been given that chance to do it.”
It may not be too long before O’Riley gets back to competing at a level similar to his old club. His form has attracted interest from the Championship, with Blackpool making a late move for him in the summer.
O’Riley may have another decision to make regarding his international future. He has represented England Under-16s and Under-18s but he is also eligible for Denmark, through his mother Gitte, and Norway, through his maternal grandfather. Of the two, Denmark could pull him away. “I feel quite Danish,” he says. “I’ve got a lot of family in Denmark, who I’m close to. I’ve visited a few times, I can speak Danish pretty well. When it came to the Euros, I didn’t know what to do, but I did celebrate Denmark’s goal as well as England’s. I know that will annoy a lot of people!”
His focus for now though is on MK Dons and helping the team push towards promotion. He says Manning has brought a “winning culture”, and that training has become more competitive as a result.
Fulham, then, is in the rear-view mirror. Perhaps in a different time, it could have worked out differently.
“Maybe, but it’s ifs and buts,” he says. “If I was there now, and Marco Silva is manager, I’d definitely back myself to be playing. But I’m not there. I’m here. I can only control what I did. And that was leaving, wasn’t it? In my head, that’s still the right thing. Maybe it would be good, maybe not. But I’m happy with the decision I made.
“I’m looking forward to seeing where that decision takes me.”

 

Seems like very, very smart business and another bargain..

With Rogic injury prone/away on int duty and Turnbull injured he'll get plenty of gametime.

I'd be starting him against Alloa 100%

 

Yep..

Seen elsewhere that he was involved in controversy in Oz I think. Bit of a bawbag supposedly and he just never fully did it from what I saw of him..

Looks like we've dodged a bullet and won a casio

 

So is he a 6, an 8 or a 10?

 

*, I want O’Reily to be Australian! Can we swap Riley too

 

Yes

 

Well, he is 6’2.

 

Left back.

 

Left winger*